


red chrome

by envysparkler



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental Brother Acquisition, Enemy to Caretaker, Gen, Good Sibling Jason Todd, Headaches, Hurt/Comfort, Jason makes a tactical mistake in having his helmet color match Tim's coffee machine, Sleep Deprivation, Tim Drake Needs a Hug, Titans Tower au, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:13:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27066946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/envysparkler/pseuds/envysparkler
Summary: Tim had a ringing headache, squeaked past hour forty of no sleep, and was now hallucinating vaguely menacing shadows with red helmets.(Jason’s attack on Titans Tower ends up going very differently.)
Relationships: Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Comments: 178
Kudos: 2004
Collections: Good Things Come In Small Packages, Red Hood vs Red Robin





	red chrome

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: [Red Chrome](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29311587) by [forest_mumu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/forest_mumu/pseuds/forest_mumu)



> I know nothing about the Titans and I did not let that stop me.

It was late.

Very late.

So late Tim hadn’t bothered to check the time, because time was an illusion and life was an illusion and coffee was the only thing that wasn’t an illusion _but the coffeemaker was broken_.

Tim stared at the beeping error message and felt the corners of his eyes begin to prickle. It was getting harder and harder to suppress the burning – his face felt like it had been stuffed, his headache had reached a crescendo of pain beyond human comprehension, and his eyes were simultaneously dry and sticky while they both refused to close and refused to open.

The mission had been a failure. Tim had been the only one who’d escaped with minor injuries, which meant that he was the only one available to figure out what exactly had gone wrong, desperately trying to salvage _some_ information after the raging dumpster fire that had ended in several broken bones, kryptonite shards, and a whole building collapsing down around them.

His head felt like it was floating. On a bed of needles. Excruciating and detached at the same time.

If he could just have coffee, if he could just finish the report, if he could just _sleep_ –

Tim stared mournfully at the machine as though it would magically decide to start working. The coffeemaker laughed and blew him a raspberry.

Tim took a wavering step forward, but the coffeemaker began dancing and Tim did not have the hand-eye coordination to catch it. Maybe if he waited, it would slow down. It had to fall asleep at some point, didn’t it?

The table was cold under his cheek. Blissfully cool against the throbbing heat searing through his forehead. He could just close his eyes and –

No. No sleep. Not until he found out where he went wrong. Everyone else was injured and exhausted, he _had_ to be the one to do this. His responsibility. His fault. Always his fault.

Wood grain was surprisingly soft –

_No_. Tim jerked his head up and immediately whimpered, clutching it with trembling fingers as he tried to breathe through the sudden, stabbing pain. His eyes felt like they were being skewered, but they couldn’t be, because blurry shapes were buzzing in and out, and the lightbulb had decided to personally torture him.

The coffeemaker was standing now, looming in the shadows. It was sneering at him, metallic red and – had someone drawn a bat on it? Ha-ha, let’s all make fun of Tim’s coffee addiction.

“The Batfee-maker,” Tim breathed out, chuckling and immediately regretting it. The table was so cold. “The Coffee-batmaker?”

There was a low and distinctly confused, “What the fuck.”

“Oh, great,” Tim whispered, “It’s talking.” Auditory hallucinations were symptom number seven? Eight? Sleep deprivation was such a pain – stupid body and stupid daily requirements, Tim was _fine_ , he got the message, he’d sleep when he was dead.

Done. He meant done. He’d sleep when he was _done_ , though death was looking like the preferable option at the moment.

He needed coffee. And he needed to finish his report. Tim blearily dragged his head up again – the coffeemaker was back on the counter and back in coffeemaker form. Unfortunately, it was still showing the error message.

Maybe if he just ate the grounds? That would help, right?

Tim sighed and pushed himself upright. Step one: getting out of the chair. Step two: finding the coffee grounds – oh, god, Tim had no idea what cupboard it was in. His teammates thought it was funny to hide it on the shelves he couldn’t reach. Goddamn tall and/or flight-capable assholes.

The coffeemaker was back on the counter, but there was another luminous red shadow next to the table – a helmet accented to look like a human face, glowing white eyes, leather jacket and dark body armor with a red bat splashed on it.

Tim stared at the figure. And then at the coffeemaker, gleaming in the same shade of red.

“It…multiplied?” Tim said hesitantly. Which one was the real one, though? The helmet didn’t have an error message. Maybe it was working.

The shadow looked at him, followed his line of sight to the counter, and then looked back at him. “You think I’m a coffeemaker,” it said flatly.

It didn’t sound too happy. Maybe it also wasn’t working. Tim sighed. The table was cold. His forehead was burning.

There were a few electronic beeps, the sound of cupboards opening and closing, and then the glorious fragrance of coffee slowly permeated through the air. Tim raised his head again, biting back the sob as the shift in position tightened bands of pressure around his head.

There was a mug of coffee in front of him. The steam was curling in little spirals, wafting the delicious scent closer to him, senses already beginning to wake up.

Wait a minute. That wasn’t his mug.

“This isn’t mine,” he said, staring at the Wonder Woman mug. He knew this mug. It was in the back of the cupboard – because no one could bear to throw it away, but no one dared touch it either. “This is Jason’s mug.”

Wait a minute. The coffeemaker was broken.

Tim squinted at the coffeemaker on the counter, which was no longer showing an error message, and then at the red helmet, which was much closer than it had been previously.

Wait a minute. Hallucinations couldn’t make coffee.

Oh god. Tim was hallucinating coffee now. It smelled so _real_. He’d officially reached rock bottom.

“Really, Replacement?” the red helmet growled, “You’ve stolen just about everything else, but you draw the line at my _mug_?”

Tim stared at the red helmet as his head sluggishly tried to interpret pitch, tone, and meaning. “Jason?” Tim blinked, “Why are you dressed like a coffeemaker?”

There were distant alarm bells ringing in his head, but Tim was too tired to deal with them. He was too tired to deal with anything. The red helmet was getting closer and the red bat was flying away.

Report, he reminded himself. _Coffee_ , his mind begged. Hallucinations, Batman growled.

“Where did Batman come from?” Tim asked wearily. The red helmet flinched and cast a quick glance around the room. Tim didn’t want to see Batman. He couldn’t let him know that they’d _failed_.

His team. His responsibility. His fault.

How could Tim be Robin and keep Batman safe if he kept failing, if he kept losing, if he kept falling behind? He needed to be stronger. He needed to be _better_.

Sleep was for the weak. He was better than sleep. He could transcend it. It didn’t matter if the coffee machine was broken. Tim would not be brought down by a lack of coffee.

The red helmet _click_ ed and eased off. Huh. Jason looked older. And taller. “Did you dye your hair?” Tim asked, furrowing his eyebrows at the white streak. He hadn’t known that the boy’s eyes had been _that_ green.

“Keep your eyes open, Replacement,” Jason said flatly, and Tim obeyed –

And screamed, jerking back and covering his head as light _stabbed_ into his eyes, a dagger straight through his head, puncturing the floaty, detached bubble as his headache invaded with a vengeance.

“Stop it,” Jason said, entirely unsympathetic as he pried Tim’s hands away from his face and forced his eyelids open. The flashlight came back and Tim strangled the sob as it sliced into his soul. “I need to check if you have a concussion.”

“No concussion,” Tim said weakly, but the hallucination should’ve already known that, because they’d run the tests as soon as they’d gotten back. The light switched off and Tim squeezed his eyes shut as he curled up in the chair, breathing raggedly as tears leaked out of his eyes.

“Well, you’re acting delirious, so forgive me for checking,” Jason said, unapologetic.

His head felt like it had been stuck on a spike and Tim suppressed the soft whine as he pressed his fingers to his temples. “You’re _mean_ ,” Tim accused weakly. Jason had never been mean before. He’d bought Tim ice cream once, when Jason was Robin and Tim was following him with a camera.

“Oh, Replacement, you have no idea.”

Replacement. Because Tim was Robin. Because Jason was _dead_. The tears leaked out faster.

“So, what’s wrong with you?”

Nothing. Everything. _Tim_ was what was wrong with him. He had to be Robin, but Timothy Drake kept poking through. He wasn’t good enough. He wasn’t Jason. He tried so hard, but he wasn’t good enough for Batman. For his team. He failed, like he’d failed them on the mission, because their intel was wrong and there was a bomb and his team was hurt and he had to know what went wrong and he was _trying_ and there was no coffee and he had to get this done before he could sleep but he couldn’t even _think_ and –

Tim only realized he was talking out loud when gloved fingers pinched his lips shut. There was a loud, growling sigh. “God _damn_ it, Replacement.”

Heavy breathing. A low, barely voiced snarl. A deeply displeased exhale.

The smell of coffee faded amidst the sound of running water. “You need to sleep.”

Tim made a mute sound of protest. He needed to fix the coffee maker, make himself a pot, and down the whole thing as he tried to figure out what went wrong in their last mission and how he could ensure it never ever happened again. He’d sleep when he was dead.

“Trust me, baby bird, death’s not all it’s cracked out to be,” Jason huffed, before a heavy grip descended on his shoulder, “Come on. _Up_.”

Tim followed the pull because he needed to get out of the chair anyway, and braced his hands against the table as he pushed himself upright. Perhaps a shade too fast.

The room was spinning around him, the lights were brief flashes of agony as they attacked, his stomach churned as his head beat to a discordant rhythm, _loud_ and _piercing_ and knots tangled together in his head and ripping him to pieces and –

He’d expected the floor to hurt more than this.

“This is _not_ what I came here for,” a low voice grumbled into his ear, clearly aggrieved.

But Tim was already slipping. There was a warm heartbeat under his ear and the lights were gone and the darkness was comforting and peaceful and the silence hummed softly around him.

A stair creaked, a doorknob turned – Tim groaned as he was jostled, but it cut off as his head met something blissfully soft and cold. Sheets were tucked around him, and something tugged gently against a few locks of his hair.

“I’m only doing this because you didn’t steal my Wonder Woman mug, Replacement.”

The darkness beckoned.

* * *

Tim hissed as his head throbbed, but the agony had reduced significantly. He stared blearily at his laptop – he remembered searching for intel, going down for coffee, and strange dreams about Jason. Apparently he had also finished his report before passing out, because it was neatly typed up in front of him.

It wouldn’t be the first time he’d had a breakthrough on the edge of unconsciousness. Tim shrugged and went in search of coffee.

* * *

Tim stared at his opponent with the niggling sense of familiarity – he felt like he’d seen this costume before. “Red Hood,” he said, tightening his grip on his bo staff as he faced the other vigilante.

Hood laughed – a harsh, mechanized bark. “Not going to call me a coffeemaker this time, Replacement?” he growled.

What was he talking ab–

Oh. Oh _no_. He thought that was a dream. That had to be a dream. Please, _please_ let that have just been a dream.

“Jason?” Tim said weakly.

Hood unlocked the helmet and pulled it off to reveal the older boy – white streak of hair, pulsing green eyes, unamused expression.

Tim’s staff slipped out of trembling fingers as he hid behind his hands – the mask wasn’t going to cover his face going bright red. He couldn’t believe he called Jason a coffeemaker. His – Robin – Jason was alive and Tim had chattered about coffee and accused him of being mean and – and –

Wait a minute. Jason was _alive_.

Jason had been in Titans Tower.

Jason had heard his rambling.

Jason had _carried him to bed_.

And Tim was never ever going to live this down.

“Kill me now,” Tim whispered, his face hot.

Jason just laughed.


End file.
